Planetary civilization

A Planetary civilization, or global civilization is a civilization of Type I on Kardashev scale, with energy consumption level near contemporary terrestrial civilization with an energy capability equivalent to the solar insolation on Earth, (between 1016 and 1017 watts). In social aspect — the worldwide, global, increasingly interconnected, international, highly technological society.

Quotes

 * Quotes are arranged alphabetically by author


 * This Voyager spacecraft was constructed by the United States of America. We are a community of 240 million human beings among the more than 4 billion who inhabit the planet Earth. We human beings are still divided into nation states, but these states are rapidly becoming a single global civilization. We cast this message into the cosmos. It is likely to survive a billion years into our future, when our civilization is profoundly altered and the surface of the Earth may be vastly changed. Of the 200 billion stars in the Milky Way galaxy, some - perhaps many - may have inhabited planets and spacefaring civilizations. If one such civilization intercepts Voyager and can understand these recorded contents, here is our message: This is a present from a small distant world, a token of our sounds, our science, our images, our music, our thoughts, and our feelings. We are attempting to survive our time so we may live into yours. We hope someday, having solved the problems we face, to join a community of galactic civilizations. This record represents our hope and our determination, and our good will in a vast and awesome universe.
 * Jimmy Carter, Message on the [[w:Voyager Golden Record|Golden Record] of the Voyager 1 spacecraft, launched into space 5 September 1977]


 * I say looking at the next 100 years that there are two trends in the world today. The first trend is toward what we call a type one civilization, a planetary civilization... The danger is the transition between type zero and type one and that’s where we are today.  We are a type zero civilization.  We get our energy from dead plants, oil and coal. But if you get a calculator you can calculate when we will attain type one status.  The answer is: in about 100 years we will become planetary.  We’ll be able to harness all the energy output of the planet earth.  We’ll play with the weather, earthquakes, volcanoes.  Anything planetary we will play with.  The danger period is now, because we still have the savagery.  We still have all the passions.  We have all the sectarian, fundamentalist ideas circulating around, but we also have nuclear weapons. ...capable of wiping out life on earth. So I see two trends in the world today.  The first trend is toward a multicultural, scientific, tolerant society and everywhere I go I see aspects of that birth. For example, what is the Internet?  Many people have written about the Internet.  Billions and billions of words written about the Internet, but to me as a physicist the Internet is the beginning of a type one telephone system, a planetary telephone system. So we’re privileged to be alive to witness the birth of type one technology... And what is the European Union?  The European Union is the beginning of a type one economy.  And how come these European countries, which have slaughtered each other ever since the ice melted 10,000 years ago, how come they have banded together, put aside their differences to create the European Union? ...so we’re beginning to see the beginning of a type one economy as well...
 * Michio Kaku, Will Mankind Destroy Itself? (29 September 2010)


 * Since, in the long run, every planetary society will be endangered by impacts from space, every surviving civilization is obliged to become spacefaring — not because of exploratory or romantic zeal, but for the most practical reason imaginable: staying alive.
 * Carl Sagan, p. 371, Pale Blue Dot (1994)


 * This is the moment of the homogenization of the world, when the diversities of societies are eroding, when a global civilization is emerging. There are no exotic places left on Earth to dream about. And for this reason there remains an even greater and more poignant need today for a vehicle, a device, to get us somewhere else. Not all of us; only a few – to the deserts of the Moon, the ancient seacoasts of Mars, the forests of the sky. There is something comforting in the idea that one day a few representatives of our little terrestrial village might venture to the great galactic cities.
 * Carl Sagan, The Cosmic Connection: An Extraterrestrial Perspective., (1973)